The Road

I settled the cup down on the coffee table and sat on the sofa, taking a sip of my own. I tried to ignore the burnt smell that was circulating the room from my mishap of trying to cook for my guest.

“I don’t know, you know,” I started. “Maybe she should have just stayed here. I think she was sort of right. And what if this lot know about father too? I should pull her out!”

“You did it for a reason. You can’t hide her away. She needs friends,” came the reply.

As much as I hated myself for admitting it, he was right.

“She looked to unhappy though.”

“Come on, Gerard! What kid wants to go to school? And especially High School?” he spilt his coffee down himself. Laughing at his clumsiness, I picked up a tea towel from the radiator and threw it at him. “Yeah, thanks a lot! But anyway, we all know what you were like in High School.”

I thought back. Everyday I would invent new symptoms; to try and convince my parents I ha this new disease that they hadn’t heard of. Every day Mikey would expose me as a liar, and I’d beat him on the way to school. I’d always thought that Frank was the lucky one; the one who was always ill and always absent.

“Yeah, you’re right,” I laughed. “She’ll be fine.”

“I swear she’ll come home with the biggest smile on her face. Just you wait!”